Can A Paleo/Low-Carb Diet Alone Treat Familial Hypercholesterolemia?

It’s almost impossible to flip through the channels on your television set these days without seeing some kind of advertisement about what to do about a condition commonly labeled as “high cholesterol.” From Lipitor to Crestor, these popular cholesterol-lowering medications have been highly touted by seemingly intelligent and respectable people like physicians and patients who claim to have been helped by regularly taking these statin medications. If you ask most people if taking a statin drug is good for you or not, it would not be surprising to hear upwards of 9 out of ten respond in the affirmative. Such is the power of the marketing of these drugs in modern society.

While many patients with a poor lipid panel (low HDL, high triglycerides, and high levels of small, dense LDL particles) got that way from consuming a high-carbohydrate diet according to a 2007 study, there are more rare instances of cholesterol issues stemming from genetics that some people need to be concerned about. It’s called familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) and it is indeed something that can run in families causing their LDL cholesterol levels to skyrocket and put them at a greater risk for premature cardiovascular disease as early as 30 years old. This is known as familial heterozygous hypercholesterolemia (FHH) and impacts approximately one out of every 500 people. So if 50,000 people are reading this column, then 100 of you statistically speaking have FHH. One such reader contacted me about this condition after he was diagnosed with it last year and he asked me to write about it so that others can benefit from the knowledge he is still building on this subject.

Click here to read more about the details of his condition and the surprising recommendation that respected low-carb cardiologist Dr. William Davis offered up as the best way to treat the FHH.

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